For My part, I had My doubts before now.

I doubted that You were truly so selfish as to orchestrate the
destruction of the Eye's power. I doubted that you truly cared so
little for the faithfulness of Your servants such as Gladius. I
doubted that you would truly risk the lives of all Achaeans by
encouraging a ritual that you knew was doomed to failure, and with
its failure could bring great destruction.

I doubted that You would have the intestinal fortitude to then gloat
about it if these things did turn out to be true.

You speak so often of playing games that all Achaea by now knows you
enjoy a gamble. And now in Your most recent game of chance I see more
clearly than ever how scantily You value even Your allies, Brother.
Had Dawn not had the extraordinary mettle to rise as the Phoenix once
the Eye was spent and finish her task, what then?

Would You have taken responsibility so readily if Your elegant plan
had not been salvaged by the last act of the Ascended mortal You call
a pawn? If the Taint, a force that rivals any Divine, had overpowered
the Guardians as it eventually would have and brought destruction
upon Sapience? If it had delivered great suffering even to the very
city you claim is under Your care?

I am not so naive now as I once had been, nor so vengeful as I was
when I first learned that Your judgement was responsible for My
suffering at Sartan's hand. Nevertheless I feel that if anything you
owe Mithraea Your thanks, not Your mockery. After all, 'twas Her
mortal soul that prevented Your "game" from ending such that all
would lose.

~V

Penned by my hand on the 18th of Mayan, in the year 331 AF.